ohana

plural ohanas · alternative ʻohana · alternative 'ohana

1. HawaiiAn extended Hawaiian family unit.

   The House and Senate are committing more than $30 million to establish “ohana zones” where the homeless can live, but are leaving it to Gov. David Ige’s administration to figure out the details.

   2018 April 28, Kevin Dayton, Nanea Kalani, “More than $30M OK’d for ‘ohana zones’”, in Honolulu Star-Advertiser, archived from the original on 01 May 2018

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   [U]nder the leadership of Ka Lahui Hawai'i headed by attorney Mililani Trask, various Native Hawaiian organizations, ohanas, and individuals formed a loose coalition that some refer to as the Hawaiian Nation within a Nation.

   1989 August 7, Maui Loa, “Testimony on Hawaiian Homestead Hearing, August 7, 1989”, in Administration of Native Hawaiian Home Lands: Joint Hearings before the Select Committee on Indian Affairs, United States Senate, and the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, House of Representatives: One Hundred First Congress, First Session on Oversight Hearing on the Administration of Native Hawaiian Home Lands: August 8, 1989, Lihue, Kauai, Part 2 (S. Hrg.; 101-555, Pr. 2), Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, published 1990, →OCLC, page 644

   The ancient Hawaiian society that began around the sixth century and lasted until around 1000 A.D. was based on the extended family group, the ʻohana, living and working cooperatively on the ahupuaʻa under the leadership of the most respected person in the group, the haku. Most members of the ohana were engaged in agriculture, some in fishing, and some were artisans who probably devoted most of their time to their crafts; undoubtedly others were all three.

   1992, Thomas Kemper Hitch, “The Polynesian Economy, Sixth Century to Mid-Nineteenth Century”, in Robert M. Kamins, editor, Islands in Transition: The Past, Present, and Future of Hawaii’s Economy, Honolulu, Hi.: First Hawaiian Bank, →ISBN, page 9

   Perhaps that is why Mr. Family celebrates the Hawaiian concept of ohana—not just family, but extended family. Through the characters of Mr. Family—Kal, Erika (who first appeared in The Third Christmas), Hiialo and their ohana—are purely imaginary, perhaps you can feel in these pages the love I've been fortunate to know.

   1996, Margot Early, “Dear Reader”, in Mr. Family (Harlequin Super Romance; 711), Toronto, Ont.; New York, N.Y.: Harlequin Books, →ISBN

   In 1981, the Honolulu City Council passed a zoning regulation that borrowed from traditional Hawaiian living arrangements to allow for what is termed ʻohana housing: incorporating relatives into an existing structure or building an "'accessory to the principal permitted single-family dwelling' for extra residents […] In Nānā I Ke Kumu (Look to the Source), a book of Hawaiian customs and beliefs, the ʻohana is described as composed of people connected by ties of love and loyalty, duty and obligation. Members of an ʻohana may or may not be blood kin; they are related by virtue of sharing sustenance and support.

   1997, Judith Modell, “(Not) In My Back Yard: Housing the Homeless in Hawaiʻi”, in Jan Rensel, Margaret Rodman, editors, Home in the Islands: Housing and; Social Change in the Pacific, Honolulu, Hi.: University of Hawaiʻi Press, →ISBN, page 201

   So, in Hawaiʻi, banks and retailers now regularly emphasize bowdlerized Hawaiian concepts in their advertising, calling their companies "ohanas" (families), for example, or using images of nineteenth-century aliʻi (chiefs) and sacred symbols […]

   1999, Houston Wood, “Disorientation: Unwriteable Knowledge”, in Displacing Natives: The Rhetorical Production of Hawaiʻi, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, →ISBN, part 1 (From Conquest to Anti-Conquest), page 53